Gas tax money running out for 2 highway projects in New Orleans area

Funds are not available to build a bridge to run through the Lower 9th Ward and part of St. Bernard Parish.

The Associated Press

5/9/2008

BATON ROUGE, La. — Income from a special 4-cent state gasoline tax is not keeping up with soaring construction costs, meaning two New Orleans area transportation projects are in jeopardy.

William Ankner, secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development, told a joint meeting of the House-Senate Committee on Transportation, Highways and Public Works on Thursday that the money is unavailable to build a 5-mile-long Florida Avenue Bridge, now projected to cost $474 million, to run through the Lower 9th Ward and part of St. Bernard Parish; and to build a stretch of Interstate 12 to Bush in St. Tammany Parish, projected to cost about $149 million.

The two projects are the last of 17 to be financed in the Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development, a 20-year-old program financed by 4 pennies of the 20-cent state gasoline tax that generates about $120 million a year. The other 16 cents goes to operate the agency and build other road projects.

"The program is bankrupt," Ankner said. "We do not have all the money we need to meet our commitments."

Ankner said the projects already under way will be financed.

"Total projected costs (for all projects planned and under way) have risen by an estimated $5.2 billion, nearly a 30 percent increase since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," Ankner said. "Options will be pursued. DOTD will meet its constitutional commitments to build these projects."

Department spokesman Mark Lambert said existing bonds that mature in the 2040s might have to be refinanced and extended beyond that date, an option Ankner said he does not prefer.

Ankner said storm delays and the spiraling costs of construction and supplies have hit the program. For example, he said, in 2002 the widening of the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish was projected to cost $312 million; the 2008 estimates place it at $1.2 billion.

Gasoline tax revenue, based on volume but not price, also has declined by 7 percent in recent months because of the growing costs of fuel.